Leap of Faith
by StarkContrastStartles
Summary: Suicide is the one thing Ziva can never regret. Her feelings as she stands on the edge. Then she jumps... Only T for the self destructive themes. Hints at Tiva.


Her eyes glazed over. Usually she would blink to clear the mist because she never liked to be at all vulnerable, but today she allowed her vision to cloud. The ground was far below her, the few people about just dots against a grey expanse. Cars screeched all around her in the multi-story car park and the din only helped to exacerbate the confusion writhing in her skull.

_All I had was death in my heart. _Her own words rushed back to her every night and she whispered them over and over as she tossed and turned. The nightmares that screamed in her head at night, howled through her mind during the day. She was never at peace with herself. She had always felt so alone and prayed for the day that she could open up and let people close. However, now she was never alone, for she could not escape the horror of her life, and she loathed it. Mossad had taught her to be emotionless and although America seemed to frown on this, the emotions that now resided in her were to be her downfall. She had been so much better off as a monotonous, robotic machine.

She had lost everything, including her blissful detachment, and now she had nothing. Mossad had prepared her for brutality, pain and callousness but not heartbreak. She knew nothing of affection and the fondness with which she regarded her colleagues was confusing and bewildering. She could not understand what had happened to the steel facade she had erected.

The ground loomed below her both ominous and comforting. She had lost control over her life but she could still have power over her death. Killed in action, that was always how she imagined it, never this way. But, at NCIS, dying at the hand of a terrorist seemed unlikely. All they seemed to deal with was murders; people already dead. Suicide was not cowardly; the final movement off the edge would be the bravest thing she ever did. Standing on the ridge was petrifying but she found a sense of empowerment and every time she imagined the fall, a wave of calm passed over her.

She had been ready in Somalia but it had been taken away. She had reconciled herself with a fate at a great cost to her sanity but the opportunity to end the nightmare had been ripped away. The monsters under her bed and the skeletons in the cupboard had emerged and where running rampant in her head. Tony had stolen the end once before, she was not going to let anyone take it away from her again.

She was poison; everything she touched shrivelled. Ari had been murdered at her hand, with her looking after him. Tony had become distant and different since she had returned and even McGee approached her warily. Once the initial shock had worn away, no one in America would miss her.

Her boyfriend in Miami was a work of her imagination. She had met someone in Miami, but he had taken one look at her scars and rejected her. She had been a fool to think that anyone could love someone so damaged. Damaged goods; that's how Vance had described her, but he had been wrong. She was not damaged, she was broken. Irrevocably, unrepairably destroyed.

_All the good ones are dead by your age. _One of the first things she had said to Gibbs that was a complete, utter lie. Gibbs was good, her father was good, and she was not. This was an opportunity to put everything right and rid the world of a destructive force.

Her foot edged towards the boundary between life and death. One quick leap and it would all be over. Just one jump.

She had not said goodbye to anyone. She was being interminably selfish but she did not care. She would be going straight to hell anyway so there was no need for remorse. Every face she had killed flashed in front of her, the faces disappearing instantly, she could not give them the attention they deserved, she never had.

She did not know what she was waiting for. The solace that would rush through her bones as she hurtled towards the unforgiving concrete floor was beckoning. No more waiting. It was time for her to die.

Her back leg contracted and she pushed off. Her body tensed with hesitation but it was too late; she was no longer safe but slicing through the air. The wind ripped through her and the relief she had been expecting was conspicuously absent.

Her thoughts were jumbled but she coherently spoke her final words. _I'm sorry. _She was apologising to everyone; it was a shame that they could not hear. To Tali, to Ari, to her mother, to her father, to Gibbs, to McGee, to Kate, to Abby, to Michael, to all the people she had torn from their one chance at life, and finally to Tony.

Tony. The name seemed to be whispered in her ear by the wind and it was the last thing she heard before she collided with the ground.

Most people lose consciousness during a fall to their death so it proved remarkable strength of character not to. That was the words of the paramedic who pulled Ziva's crushed body into the ambulance. The words that were meant to comfort but only managed to confuse them more.

Show a group the mutilated body of their friend and gauge their reaction. It is a good measure of someone's character. Gibbs swiftly ran his eyes across the body with a mixture of pity, disappointment and understanding; McGee refusing to look at her, preferring to remember her as the strong assassin who stuck up for him and hoping to keep his breakfast down; Abby shrieked hysterically, voicing her confusion and grief to the world; Ducky muttered some sympathetic words of wisdom; Palmer threw up behind a car, horrified by the seemingly unruffled ex-assassin; Vance remained by his car, his methodic mind running through Agent David's life and wondering how to tell her father; Tony, however, did not know how to act. He stroked her bloody arm and ran his fingers through her wind swept hair. He could not stop staring into her anguished eyes but could not fathom what went on behind them in the seconds before her death.

The future was foggy and incomprehensible. Life would inevitably carry on without her but he couldn't foresee letting anyone else into his life as deeply as he had let her. He had never got the chance to tell her how he felt, just like he had never told Kate. Perhaps he was incapable of expressing his love or perhaps he was unable to break Gibbs' rules. _Now I'll never know._ She did not get a chance to realise her feelings for Rivkin and now history was repeating itself. Except, this time, there was no one else to blame but her. She had killed herself and left him in the lurch. It seemed so selfish of her. Or, so selfish of him to only think of himself. He would never be able to understand what terrors drove her to do this but he knew that they must have been eating away at her for she was the strongest person he knew. He trusted her with his life but, apparently, she could not be trusted with her own.

Ziva believed in the afterlife so regardless of whether it existed or not she was prepared because she had died looking forward to another chance and if it didn't exist she would never know the difference. Everybody gets one chance and once it's over, it's over. They never get to feel again, never get to touch again, never get to speak again. The people left behind have to deal with their grief but slowly they will return to normal life and continue to feel, touch and speak. Their thoughts will no longer be consumed by their loss but the deceased never get to forget since they never get to know what life is like without them in it.

Ziva's nightmare is over and the demons died with her. Finally, her mind is at rest. She doesn't get another chance.

Her suicide was not selfish. No one else can ever understand the horrors that drove her to end it. The people she abandoned will continue, maybe slightly altered, but they weren't the ones feeling the burden of whatever pain it was. Now that she regained the control over her life that she lacked during it, she can finally rest in peace. Her death was the one thing that she can never regret.

_**Sorry, this became less about Ziva and more about my feelings as it went on, but I hope it didn't stray too much from NCIS. Please review because I would like to know how you interpret this. **_

_**This is probably it but it could be continued.**_


End file.
